Imogen pushed the point of her pen hard against the Bellagio notepad to keep it from skidding. “Were there any around the fifteenth of June of last year?”
“June thirteenth,” the nurse confirmed.
Two days before Louisa Greenway disappeared. Imogen could taste it—she had just found the source of the thread on Louisa Greenway’s sweater. Loverboy had seen Louisa at the Somerville fair, had won a toy, and had taken it to Bethany in the nursing home. Bethany, his first victim. Had he gone to celebrate with her? Or to rub it in?
Imogen forced herself to say, “What was the name of the visitor?”
She lived a century in the seconds it took the woman on the other end of the phone to make out the messy signature.
Finally the nurse said, “Benton Arbor.”
“I’ll be sending someone up to take a look at that,” Imogen told her, surprised at how level her voice was. “In the meantime, is there a safe or something where you could lock the stuffed animal and the log up?”
“Lock up Beth’s cat? And the visitors’ log? Why on earth?”
“They are prime pieces of evidence in a murder investigation.”
Imogen imagined that the nurses would not be discussing engagement rings for the rest of the night.
Her phone rang as soon as she hung up. It was Bugsy.
“Have you heard anything from Dannie?” she asked. “She should have checked in hours ago.”
“No.” His voice was tense. “I’m sure she’s just running down leads and doesn’t want to call empty-handed. Listen, boss.” He paused.
“What is it, Bugsy?”
“We got a match on that partial print from the carabiner in the taxicab,” he told her. He stopped.
“It is Benton’s,” she said, sparing him.
“Yes. J.D. is sure it’s another one of those joke pieces of evidence—”
“It’s not. Have a team in Detroit follow Benton. Our team, the best Detroit has got. I don’t want anyone to know. I don’t want to risk alerting Benton that we are on to him. We will also need a team on the ground here to arrest him as soon as his plane lands.”
Imogen hung up without saying good-bye. Until now, until the print on the carabiner, everything had been circumstantial. She could make excuses, keep herself from believing.
Now she had no choice. She picked up her pen and went to the profile list. She filled in the blanks. She’d found the killer.
She forced herself to replay the investigation in her head. She remembered that very first day, the way he had antagonized her, then come and humbled himself and apologized. She now understood that had been calculated, a device to earn her trust. He was the one who had changed the security tapes. He had probably come to her room directly after having sex with Marielle Wycliffe the first time.
Two dates, he’d said, as if daring her to make a connection to a killer who didn’t kill on the first date. Loverboy is making a family, he had suggested, teaching her all about himself. She had wondered how Loverboy and Martina were communicating and now she knew—she had BROUGHT him to the prison with her. And she herself had said that he and J.D.—her other prime suspect—were a lot alike. Handsome, organized, well-educated white males who thrived on attention.
“It was right in front of my face the whole time,” she said to Rex.
Right there written in huge letters, and she hadn’t seen it because she was too damn busy falling in love with him. Feeling connected with him. Feeling, for the first time, like she had found the best parts of herself. She had realized Loverboy was good at reading people. She just hadn’t seen how good. He had known exactly what to do to get her to fall for him. And she’d gone along, thinking that her feelings for Benton were getting in the way of the case. She hadn’t seen that they were the case.
She picked up the hotel phone and pushed the button for room service. “The best one you have. I don’t care what it costs,” she said. Listened. “Oh. Okay, then the second best.”
When the waiter arrived she tipped him outrageously, told him she wouldn’t need any glasses, and took her bottle of Dom Pérignon into the bathroom with her.
It was just after midnight.
She stood in front of the mirror and toasted herself. She made herself say the words out loud. “Congratulations, Imogen! You’ve found Loverboy with two days to spare! Well done.”
Then she got into the shower and drank her champagne out of the bottle and cried.
No matter what she did she could not feel clean.
CHAPTER 85
Rosalind is about to die . . .
“Does my humming bother you, Ros?” Loverboy asked over his shoulder. He was at his desk.
Rosalind didn’t say anything.
“I’m getting tired of you not answering when I talk to you, Ros.”
Rosalind ground her teeth to keep her mouth closed.
“It’s making me feel silly,” he warned.
She had learned what silly meant. It meant angry. It meant wanting to kill someone. She had learned a lot about him that evening, a lot she hadn’t known, as they read his family album together. A lot she had not wanted to know.
“Loverboy says, tell me if my humming is bothering you, Ros.”
“No,” she answered. “It is nice. What song is it?”
“Did I tell you to say all that?” he demanded. “I didn’t, did I?” His eyes lit up. “I could cut out your tongue! I could do that now and it wouldn’t ruin the collage.” He licked his lips. “I am going to cut out your tongue, Rosalind.”
Rosalind fought to keep her breathing normal.
“Say bye-bye to your tongue, Ros.” He came toward her, his big knife in his hand. “Loverboy says open your mouth, Rosalind.”
Rosalind hesitated.
“LOVERBOY SAYS OPEN YOUR GODDAMNED MOUTH.”
His eyes flashed and Rosalind felt the knife on her neck and she opened her mouth. She was crying.
“Hullese,” she said, with her mouth open. “Hu-u-les don.”
“DID I TELL YOU THAT YOU COULD TALK?”
She felt her tears falling on her hands. His face came close to hers and the knife moved across her chin, up to her lips—
“P.U., your breath stinks!” He jumped backward, taking the knife with him. “P.U.! I think I’ll leave your tongue in there.” He looked at her. “You look stupid like that, with your mouth open, Ros.”
Rosalind did not move. She knew he was trying to get her to disobey him. To do something so he would have an excuse to hurt her.
“Shut your trap, Ros,” he ordered her, stern.
Her mouth stayed open.
“Loverboy says to shut your trap, Ros.”
She closed her mouth.
He turned, went back to the desk, and saw it was half past midnight. “Just two days to go, Ros,” he told her. “Won’t be long now.”
He did not see her shudder. He was too busy getting everything ready. It was time for the ritual.
CHAPTER 86
. . . and Imogen is too!!!
Imogen reached for the phone from the shower. “What?”
“I have bad news, Imogen,” Bugsy said. “Benton is not in Detroit. He never went there. He gave our team the slip, sent his plane up—bottom line, we don’t think he ever left Las Vegas.”
Imogen dragged her clothes into the living room of her suite and dressed fast, her eyes not leaving the collage. Come on, come on, she urged herself. Figure it out. Now. Figure it out. Goddamn you, Imogen, FIND ROSALIND NOW.
Emergency! Emergency! the collage screamed at her.
Suddenly it made sense. She ripped the hangman’s gallows with the twelve spaces Loverboy had faxed after the Marielle Wycliffe murder from the wall and began filling them in. Twelve spaces. She knew from the tape the address would be on the east side. She looked up at the list of items in the collage.
East side. E for Emergency!
There were eight other items with prominent names in the collage.
I for Intellivision.
N
for Night Crawlers.
G for Great Houdini Magic Set.
O for Original Ouija board.
F for Ford County Library.
L for Liquid Paper.
A for Audrie Lumber.
M for Mead notebook.
I N G O F L A M. FLAMINGO. And with the Emergency! poster, E FLAMINGO. East Flamingo.
The bastard had simply been spelling it all along. Imogen had tried every kind of riddle but the answer had been so simple.
They still needed a number. If there really were only twelve spots and the E was part of the address, then the number would be only three digits. There was the 87 of the stereo, but that was only two.
Emergency!
The date on the license plate, the one Cal had pointed out to her. Yes! April 1980. 480. 480 East Flamingo.
She was out the door, punching numbers into her phone. Bugsy answered as she reached the lobby. “Bugsy, I need a backup team at 480 East Flamingo,” she said, running through the casino. “I think I solved the collage. I’m going over there now to look around, but I won’t go in until we have people in place.”
“I’m afraid that might take a second, boss. I was just about to call you.”
Imogen had reached the reception area. She stopped, panting. “What happened, Bugsy?”
“They—they found Dannie.”
Imogen put her hand over her mouth. Her body filled with ice. SOMEONE MUST PAY. “No. Oh no. Oh—where?”
“At the Fun Motel. Opposite the Stratosphere at the end of the Strip.”
“In the bathtub?”
“Shower. There is no bathtub.”
“Oh God. Oh God, no, not Dannie.” She was biting her lip, her hands smashing over her eyes.
“Her car was in the lot. It looks like she went there willingly. There was nothing you could do, boss.”
SOMEONE MUST PAY.
Someone had.
“I could have caught him,” Imogen said, hating herself. Hating herself to death. I could have not slept with him. I could—
“Bugsy, get me backup as fast as you can. I’ll be somewhere around 480 East Flamingo.”
“Don’t get any vigilante-super-crime-fighter ideas. You know that cops who do that in movies always end up dead.”
“This isn’t a movie.”
“All the more reason not to do it.”
“I’ll wait for backup.”
The cabdriver, who Imogen ascertained was personally known to the valet parkers on duty, shook his head doubtfully when Imogen gave him the address. “You sure you want 480?” he asked as they made a right turn onto East Flamingo.
“I know it’s a deserted lot or something.”
“Actually, it’s not,” the cabbie said. He pulled over and pointed across six lanes of traffic. “It’s that. The power grid.”
Imogen stared at it. It didn’t look right.
“If you’re looking for deserted lots, there’s the Bally’s parking lot back there a ways,” the cabdriver told her. “And there’s the Ice Garden.”
“The what?”
“Used to be a skating rink. Now that Benton Arbor guy uses it as his Vegas headquarters. You know, the race-car driver? Mostly it’s empty, though. It’s 804 East Flamingo. I know because it’s got a big sign.”
“Eight zero four,” Imogen repeated, just to be sure she had it. “Like April 1980 but backward.”
The cabdriver scowled. “I guess. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Drive me over there. But drop me off a block away.”
CHAPTER 87
The taxi driver hadn’t lied. The address was written over the front of the Garden in huge letters that Imogen could see from where the taxi let her out. 804 E. Flamingo. Like an advertisement.
The cocky bastard. She was seething. She felt lethal. She was almost mad enough to go over and bang on the door, but she was not insane. There was a twenty-four-hour convenience store attached to a gas station next to the place. Grumpy’s, the sign said. Perfect. She walked toward it as she phoned Bugsy the new address.
“Backup should be there in seven minutes, boss,” he told her. “I’m going to keep you on the phone unless you promise not to go in there.”
“I’m not going in,” she promised. Thinking, I’ve already screwed up enough. “I won’t jeopardize Rosalind’s life now.”
“Good.”
It was only after she hung up that she heard the footsteps behind her.
She turned around. Benton stood right there holding a cup of coffee. Right there wearing his glasses, looking sheepish. “Imogen. I didn’t—”
“Expect to see me?” she finished the sentence for him. “No, I bet not.”
“I’m sorry I lied to you about being in Detroit.”
Is that what you lied to me about? she wanted to scream. Was she really having this conversation?
She stared at him and he rushed on. “There was no way I could just leave town knowing that Rosalind’s life hung in the balance,” he said. “And maybe yours. I wanted to tell you, but with the feds—”
“Don’t come any closer.”
“Imogen?” Benton looked confused. He took another step.
“Stop right there!” she yelled. Don’t touch me, don’t come near me, oh God, Benton, how could you, HOW COULD YOU?
He took another step. Reached for her. “What is wrong?”
He is a killer. He has brutally tortured a woman for two weeks. He is not the man you thought he was. He is not the man you love.
Coming closer now. “Imogen? Why—”
She shot him.
Then she turned and ran.
She sprinted toward the Garden. If he was out there then she could get safely inside and save Rosalind. “Sorry, Bugsy,” she whispered as she threw herself through the swinging glass door and locked it behind her. “I can’t wait any longer.”
CHAPTER 88
Loverboy took a deep breath and reseated himself on the desk chair to begin the ritual.
He flipped his family album open to the very first page and smoothed his hand over the single article pasted there. It was framed with gold corners to show it was special.
DEATHS:
Harwood, Edward. 58 years old, chauffeur. Of injuries sustained in car accident, which also killed his employer, Malcolm Arbor (see prev. page, main column).
Beloved father, survived by his only son, Cal Harwood, a sophomore at MIT. Memorial services private.
His eyes lingered, as they always did, on the words beloved father, survived by only son. That was the best part. He’d written it himself. He was so—
“Ros? Did you make a noise?” He turned around and fixed Rosalind with a mean stare.
But even as he looked at her and saw she wasn’t moving, he heard the noise again. There was someone downstairs. There was someone—
“Hello?” the voice called. “Is there anyone here?”
Not someone. Imogen!
Loverboy’s heart started to race. This was even better than he planned. Oh my goodness, was it good. He grabbed his jacket and the glasses he wore when he was being Cal. He leaned toward Rosalind’s ear and said, “If you make a noise I’ll make you eat Imogen’s tongue before I cut yours out, got it?”
Rosalind nodded. Cal left the room and ambled quietly downstairs.
“Imogen?” he said, peering over the expanse of the Ice Garden toward her. He was coming down the stairs from the “offices,” shading his eyes with one hand as if he couldn’t make her out. As if he were just Mr. Hardworking Arbor Motors Employee.
She swung around toward him, aiming her gun at his stomach. When she saw who it was she let it fall to her side. “Oh my God, Cal, thank God you’re here.”
Someone started banging on the front door of the Garden and, turning around, Cal saw that it was Benton. He was bleeding out of his leg.
Imogen looked from him to Cal. She had her hand on his arm. “We’ve got to call the police, Cal. We’ve got to call them and you’ve got to help me search.”
Cal felt her gun near his hand. He looked at her. “Imogen, are you okay?”
“No. Yes. It doesn’t matter. Look, you were right, Cal. The registration on the fire truck on that Emergency! poster did mean something. It meant—”
“—804,” Cal said. He cocked his head to one side. “Duh. I mean, why else would I have put it there?” He would have liked to take a few minutes and really enjoy her look of surprise, but he couldn’t risk it. He reached out with the chloroform-soaked rag he had in his hand and covered Imogen’s nose and mouth.
He carried her upstairs and laid her on the floor next to Rosalind’s feet. Rosalind stared at her. “Ros, meet Imogen. I’m sure she’d say ‘hi’ if she could, but she’s a little OUT OF IT right now. Anyway, I hope you two like each other. You’re going to spend the rest of your lives together.”
He chuckled. Then he covered Rosalind’s nose and mouth with chloroform until she passed out too.
He tied the two women together, slipped on his special outfit, and dumped their bodies into the laundry cart he’d stolen. As he worked he sang quietly to himself.
London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down
Falling down
Imogen and Rosalind falling down
My fair ladies!
By the time the backup came Loverboy and his ladies were riding up up up in the world’s fastest elevator and Benton was lying in front of the Garden door in a pool of his own blood.
CHAPTER 89
Loverboy rules!
Cal was sitting next to them, his back against the side of the observation platform, talking on his cell phone when Imogen regained consciousness. Her face was leaning against someone’s back and her hands, taped together in front of her, were bound to someone else’s. Rosalind, she guessed.
“Benton, is that you?” Cal was saying into the mouthpiece. He was wearing his glasses and workman’s overalls with the name Western Linen Supplies stitched on the chest. Imogen strained to hear what he was saying. They were on top of the Stratosphere, on the outside observation deck more than a hundred stories above the Strip, and the wind carried Cal’s voice away from her. “Are you paying attention?” she heard him ask. “Good. Ready? Get out your pencil and paper. If a man runs up stairs at an average pace of one floor every forty-five seconds, how long will it take him to climb a hundred and eight floors?”
Bad Girl and Loverboy Page 74
